Past Exhibitions
Yinka Ilori: Transparent Happiness
A playable artwork open 24/7 at Amos Rex's domes on Lasipalatsi Square
For our summer 2025 project in the courtyard, Amos Rex invited designer and artist Yinka Ilori MBE to transform the Lasipalatsi Square into a site for interaction, play, and togetherness. Transparent Happiness, Yinka’s playable landscape, is a winding trail for sitting, walking, running, or skateboarding, along with a ping pong table, and a basketball court.
24 Hours with Tony Cokes
For one day only, the retrospective and exhibition is open to all and free of charge.
Amos Rex and PUBLICS present rare and unique 24 hours with Tony Cokes, a 24-hour programme & retrospective exhibition featuring video works by American artist, Tony Cokes, alongside live performances by Vladislav Delay (Sasu Ripatti), and an assembly of Finland- based musicians under the rubric Sonic Wilderness Remix; Antye Greie-Ripatti aka “AGF”, Islaja, and Cucina Povera.
Anna Estarriola: Staged Circumstances and Piles of Things
In Estarriola's exhibition, he boundaries between the impossible and the possible are blurred, and our ways of perceiving reality are examined from numerous different angles.
Acrobat stands on their hair, various elements that have arrived from different parts of the universe give speeches at a table, and multiple whispers are heard from inside a giant beanie hat. The boundaries between the impossible and the possible are blurred, and our ways of perceiving reality are examined from numerous different angles. Staged Circumstances and Piles of Things is the largest solo show to date by the Catalonia-born, Helsinki-based artist Anna Estarriola.
Enni-Kukka Tuomala
Two strangers step into the Empathy Echo Chamber and share a guided experience. 3D-scanned waiting rooms, libraries, transport hubs, and parks transform into large-scale sculptures. Enni-Kukka Tuomala’s Expanding Empathies at Amos Rex explores empathy, distance, and the limits of our bubbles—inviting us to strengthen our connection to ourselves and each other.
Larissa Sansour
Past, present and possible futures converge in a darkly expressive exhibition by Palestinian-Danish artist Larissa Sansour at Amos Rex. Sansour’s video works and installations interweave contemporary political issues with imagined realities, using narrative methods of science fiction, documentary and opera. The artist’s evocative, carefully refined works expand into universal studies of grief, memory and inherited trauma.
Kim Simonsson: Moss Giants
The Moss children are independent, they don’t need the help of adults. – Kim Simonsson
Four shimmering green figures have laid down temporary roots in the Lasipalatsikortteli Square and on the terrace of Bio Rex. A haunting mystery surrounds these moss giants, some of the Finnish sculptor Kim Simonsson’s largest works to date. The giants form a fantastical band of travellers, inviting us to question, dream and imagine in the fearless way of children.
I feel, for now
The wide-ranging exhibition I feel, for now, will show works from the collection made by more than 70 artists from the 1960s up to the present.
Art moves us, or not, in ways that we ourselves do not always quite understand, let alone knowing how to put them into words. I feel, for now is Amos Rex’s first exhibition of works from its own collections on this scale, and takes us through the art into emotions. The more than a hundred artworks chosen for the exhibition carry us from isolation to empathy, from ecstasy to nostalgia.
Keiken: Spirit Systems of Soft Knowing
This tactile, spatial installation draws on the body’s energy currents and on material animism, a philosophy rooted in the idea that all creatures and things possess a soul.
Spirit Systems of Soft Knowing ༊*·˚ by the artist collective Keiken, explored the idea of extending empathetic connection and communication towards other species and other forms of existence. This tactile, spatial installation drew on the body’s energy currents and on material animism, a philosophy rooted in the idea that all creatures and things possess a soul. The experiences and bodily sensations of museum visitors became a continuation of and complement to this immersive work.
Josefina Nelimarkka: The Cloud of Un/knowing
Josefina Nelimarkka’s The Cloud of Un/knowing lifts our gaze to the heavens. It explores clouds and their essence as part of the Earth’s hydrological cycle. The exhibition consists of new works that change in an instant, materials that stimulate the senses, and atmospheric–data-driven technology. Local weather data and scientific measurements acquired from the Arctic regions in real time are transformed into light, sound, and digital water droplets forming a subtle unity.
Ryoji Ikeda
Explosive abundance and simple line drawings, sound and silence, pulsating light and suddenly darkening screens – Ryoji Ikeda’s audiovisual installations take over Amos Rex’s cavernous exhibition halls.
Japanese composer and artist Ryoji Ikeda builds immersive audiovisual installations from sound, light, physical phenomena and mathematical considerations. Among the works, you could also see new works that are connected to the museum’s unique architecture. Amos Rex’s exhibition was Ikeda’s first solo exhibition in Finland.
Ryoji Ikeda’s exhibition was on view from 27 September 2023 to 25 February 2024.
Generation 2023
In this third edition of Generation triennial, the young artists’ relationship with creativity continues to be multidisciplinary and open-minded.
From gathering confessions to everyday observations of a fragment collector, from knitted diaries to monster outfits – in this third edition of Generation triennial, the young artists’ relationship with creativity continues to be multidisciplinary and open-minded. The artists of Generation 2023 move fluidly across different art forms avoiding strictly defined genres.
Hans Op de Beeck: The Quiet Parade
The artist invites us to wander in an enigmatic park depicting different stages of life.
In The Quiet Parade, Hans Op de Beeck’s hypnotic world took over Amos Rex from 21 Sept 2022 – 26 Feb 2023. The Belgian artist created a new immersive installation, which invited the viewer to ponder the ordinary moments and the essential questions of being.
Hans Op de Beeck is known for his large-scale spatial installations and figurative sculptures capturing moments frozen in time, but he moves in a variety of ways between different media.
Tadashi Kawamata: The Nest
Kawamata has carried out site-specific projects all over the world adding impromptu layers and structures to urban and natural spaces, often as a community effort.
The Nest by Japanese artist Tadashi Kawamata is an outdoor sculptural installation in which reclaimed materials surge over the roof of the Lasipalatsi building and soar up the courtyard chimney.
Subterranean
There is much more beneath the earth’s surface besides earth, minerals and roots. There is also the glowing magma of volcanoes, underground aquifers, unexplored caves, rabbit holes, catacombs and metro tunnels. Amos Rex’s Subterranean was an extensive exhibition consisting of four themes that explored how artists through the centuries have depicted the worlds beneath our feet.
Bill Viola: Inner Journey
American Bill Viola (1951–2024) is one of the most acclaimed video and installation artists of our time.
Amos Rex and Bill Viola Studio are delighted to present acclaimed video and installation artist Bill Viola’s first solo exhibition in Finland. Bill Viola’s immersive projections of mythically flowing waters and fires fill Amos Rex’s underground exhibition spaces. Bill Viola: Inner Journey is on view from 22 September 2021 to 27 February 2022.
Studio exhibition: Between us
Amos Rex gave Karoliina Hellberg, Tero Kuitunen and Raimo Saarinen free rein to create new art for spaces within the museum and Bio Rex, beyond the exhibition hall.
Raija Malka & Kaija Saariaho: Blick
This summer, Amos Rex visitors can step directly into Blick.
Blick is a multisensory total work of art by visual artist Raija Malka and composer Kaija Saariaho. The exhibition takes us into the midst of a sound work by Saariaho and installations by Malka. The audience is invited to participate in creating Blick by moving through it, observing it, becoming immersed in it or constructing their own arrangements.
Egypt of Glory
The Last Great Dynasties
Egypt of Glory was shown in two parallel locations: at Amos Rex in Helsinki, and at the Art Museum of Estonia’s Kumu Art Museum in Tallinn. The rare two-part exhibition is based on one of the most important collections of Ancient Egyptian art and culture outside Egypt – the collection of Museo Egizio in Turin, Italy.
Generation 2020
Generation 2020 presents the works of over 80 artists aged 15–23, selected from an open call that received over 1,600 work proposals.
Generation 2020 is a fascinating peek into the minds and art of an emerging generation of artists. Amos Rex’s exhibition Generation 2020 presented works by over 80 artists aged 15–23. The diversity of the artists is apparent in the exhibition that shows artworks selected through an open call from over 1 600 proposals. The 150+ artworks of the exhibition take us through subjects, such as sexual identity, climate change, technology and future, well-being, craftmanship and visual arts traditions as well as social and personal memory.
Birger Carlstedt: Le Chat Doré
Amos Rex presented Birger Carlstedt (1907–1975) in an extensive exhibition that encompasses the artist’s entire career, all the way from his abstract experiments of the 1920s to the Concretist period beginning in the 1950s. The exhibition includes a reconstruction of the legendary café Le Chat Doré, “The Golden Cat”.
Ars Fennica
The 2019 Ars Fennica Prize was awarded to visual artist Ragnar Kjartansson.
Ars Fennica 2019 exhibition presents the five candidates vying for Finland’s most notable visual art award: Petri Ala-Maunus (FI), Miriam Bäckström (SE), Ragnar Kjartansson (IS), Egill Sæbjörnsson (IS) and Aurora Reinhard (FI). Central themes of the exhibition jointly arranged by Amos Rex and Ars Fennica include the role of the artist, power relations, new pictorial realities and the Western tradition of landscape painting.
Studio Drift: Elemental
The centrepiece of the exhibition is Drifter, a utopian vision of a concrete monolith floating silently towards an unknown destination.
Amos Rex is thrilled to present the works of Amsterdam-based artist collective Studio Drift. Comprising film, sculpture and installations, the current exhibition explores the basic premise from which all living beings operate: single entities attaching themselves to larger contexts. Founded in 2007 by Lonneke Gordijn and Ralph Nauta, Studio Drift work across a range of media, navigating the boundaries of art and technology with great ease. The centrepiece of the exhibition is Drifter, a utopian vision of a concrete monolith floating silently towards an unknown destination.
Magritte
The works of the Belgian painter René Magritte (1898-1967) are shown for the first time in Finland at Amos Rex. Magritte, who is considered a leading figure in Surrealism, is particularly known for his works that turn everyday reality upside down; an apple fills a whole room and a nose becomes a pipe. The familiar is suddenly bafflingly strange. The exhibition puts the artist himself centre stage: it is constructed around Magritte’s Life Line lecture, given in Antwerp in 1938.
teamLab: Massless
The exhibition Amos Rex art museum opened with in 2018
teamLab (founded in 2001) is a Tokyo-based multidisciplinary artists’ group of around 500 members. Made up of artists, coders, computer animators, mathematicians, architects, graphic designers and writers, the group’s common goal is to “redefine reality”.